


When I'm With You

by stellarmeadow



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Coda, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, episode s03e18 coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:13:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24139435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellarmeadow/pseuds/stellarmeadow
Summary: He’d always kind of expected if Buck ran into Abby again it would be a little bit of a train wreck, given the way she’d left, and the way Buck’s emotions tended to run all over the place.He just hadn’t expected it to be anactualtrain wreck.Buck hadn’t said much after they’d finished up at the site of the wreck. He’d been silent in the truck, staring out the window. They were all exhausted, which meant a quiet ride anyway, which made Buck’s silence easier to miss.Unless you were looking very closely.A soft knock at the front door had him running to answer it before a louder knock followed. He opened the door to find Buck standing on the other side, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, like a kid who’d missed curfew.“Can I come in?”
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan “Buck” Buckley & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 55
Kudos: 563





	When I'm With You

**Author's Note:**

> One of what I am sure will be many, many codas to 318. Thanks to tarialdarion and smudegirl for assuring me that this does not suck. :)

Eddie closed Christopher’s door quietly, making sure not to wake him. He’d been so excited about packing for summer camp that getting him to sleep had been difficult. 

Not that the distraction hadn’t been nice. Part of Eddie’s brain had been focused on Buck—more than usual—ever since the train wreck. 

He’d always kind of expected if Buck ran into Abby again it would be a little bit of a train wreck, given the way she’d left, and the way Buck’s emotions tended to run all over the place. 

He just hadn’t expected it to be an _actual_ train wreck.

Buck hadn’t said much after they’d finished up at the site of the wreck. He’d been silent in the truck, staring out the window. They were all exhausted, which meant a quiet ride anyway, which made Buck’s silence easier to miss.

Unless you were looking very closely.

A soft knock at the front door had him running to answer it before a louder knock followed. He opened the door to find Buck standing on the other side, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, like a kid who’d missed curfew. 

“Can I come in?”

Eddie blinked. He couldn’t remember the last time Buck had asked. Come to think of it, even knocking was weird. “Of course.”

He pulled back the door and Buck stepped inside, hands still in his pockets. “Thanks.”

“What’s—actually, hang on, come with me.” Eddie grabbed Buck’s arm, surprised at the lingering chill clinging to his shirt. It wasn’t all that cold out, which meant he’d had to be outside for a while. “You’re cold,” Eddie said, as he pulled Buck through to the kitchen. “Why are you cold?”

Buck shrugged. “I was sitting outside for a while, thinking.” 

“Outside my house?”

“No, um…” Buck shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “In the park.”

“Okay….” When Buck just stood there, Eddie pulled out a chair. “Sit,” he said. “I’ll get you some coffee.” 

Buck sat down, finally pulling his hands out of his pockets, only to tuck them under his arms as he folded them over his chest. “How about a beer?” 

Eddie pulled a mug out of the cabinet as he looked over at Buck. His skin was pale to begin with, but it was more than usual tonight, and if his shirt was still cool, then the rest of him couldn’t be that warm. “You need something to warm you up first.” At Buck’s imploring look, Eddie sighed. “I’ll put some whiskey in the coffee?”

He kept glancing at Buck as the Keurig brewed, and Buck kept staring at the table. So, clearly his conversation went well. Not. 

The Keurig bubbled to a finish, and true to his promise, Eddie added a little whiskey to the mug before he placed the mug in front of Buck and sat down. “You were meeting up with Abby hours ago,” Eddie said quietly. “What happened?”

Buck stared down at the coffee. “She said…she said that she was sorry I had to find out about her engagement like that.”

 _Oh, so not that she disappeared and got engaged, but that he found out like that? Really?_ “ _That’s_ what she’s sorry about?” 

Buck’s lips thinned. “That’s what I said,” he replied after a moment. “And then I asked her when she knew she wasn’t coming back.”

 _So at least he hadn’t just let it go._ “What did she say?”

“That when she left she thought she would come back.” Buck took a drink, his words slower, as if he was still processing, as he continued. “She said that her life here revolved around everyone else’s problems and she had no sense of self, so she had to leave everything she knew to remember who she was.”

Eddie couldn’t decide if that was selfish, self-centered, or both. “So she had to go find herself?”

“Yeah.”

Definitely both. As if Eddie hadn’t wanted to say a few choice words to her enough already? “So, what, she found herself with this guy?”

Buck shook his head. “She said that once she figured out who she was,” he said, still in that same halting way that was starting to freak Eddie out a little, “that she was afraid to come home. Because being here, being with me, she might lose herself again.” 

Eddie didn’t even know where to start with that. “So what did you say?”

“That I was glad to see her happy. That she deserves it.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Buck glanced up at him through his lashes before looking back down at the mug. “She deserves to be happy,” he said with a shrug. “It’s true.” 

“What about you?” Eddie asked.

Buck blinked up at him, confused. “What about me?”

“She left you hanging for years, Buck. Years.” Eddie leaned forward, elbows on the table. “She went off and let you live there with her ghost until you got sick of it, and then she still didn’t say a word, and you find out in the middle of a literal train wreck? And you’re ‘glad to see her happy’?”

“When I last saw her, she’d just lost her mom, Eddie. And I loved her—of course I’m glad to see her happy.”

Eddie stared at him. “Why aren’t you angry?”

“Why weren’t you angry with Shannon?”

“Who says I wasn’t?” 

“Exactly.”

Shit. He hadn’t seen the parallels, but now that Buck put it out there like that…. “Buck….”

“You’re allowed to shoulder some of the blame for Shannon’s disappearing act. I get to own my part in Abby’s.”

“I went back to a war thousands of miles away and left her to care for our kid,” Eddie said evenly. “You stayed at Abby’s apartment and watered her plants. It’s not quite the same thing.”

“Look,” Buck said, chair scraping against the floor as he stood. “I know I’m a lot, okay?” He paced across to the sink and looked outside before he turned around, back against the counter, and stared at the floor. “I know I can be…difficult. Too much to deal with.”

Those weren’t Abby’s words. And judging from how deep they seemed to cut, they had to be old, too. “Who told you that?” Eddie asked softly. “Your mom?” Buck didn’t react. “Your dad?”

It was only a slight tightening in Buck’s jaw, but it was enough. 

“Hey.” Eddie joined him by the sink, leaning in beside him, arm pressing lightly against Buck’s. “Sometimes our parents look at us and see how we succeed where they fail, and they can’t stand it.”

Buck’s laugh was bitter. “Sure.”

“I’m serious.” Eddie took a deep breath. “Just before I left Texas,” he said slowly, “my parents sat me down for a talk. Told me that they were what was best for Christopher, and that I should just give him up.” Eddie swallowed back the combination of nausea and rage that the memory still left in his gut. “Said I shouldn’t drag him down with me.”

“What!?”

“Shhh,” Eddie said. “You’ll wake him up.”

“See?” Buck said, voice quieter now. “That’s just one in a million things that show what a great parent you are. You are the best father I’ve ever seen, Eddie. Your parents are full of it.”

He hadn’t thought he’d needed the validation, but it was like a warm glow that fought back the memory. “So maybe your dad was, too?”

Buck stared at the floor for a moment before turning his head to look at Eddie. “If he was wrong,” Buck said, “why does everyone leave?”

“Maddie’s here—”

“For now.”

“She’s not going anywhere this time. And you have a whole family at the 118 who hasn’t left, no matter how many times you’ve tried to get yourself killed.” Eddie bumped their shoulders together. “I’m still here.” 

One corner of Buck’s mouth turned up. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, you are.” 

Buck turned to stand in front of Eddie, pressing him back against the counter to lean in for a kiss. Eddie wrapped his arms around Buck, trying to pour all the feelings he had about how amazing Evan Buckley was into kissing him back. 

“You know,” Buck said, after a while, forehead pressed against Eddie’s, “you have a bed just around the corner.”

“I do,” Eddie said, and there couldn’t be any doubt in Buck’s mind how much Eddie wanted to take him there, not with the way Eddie’s dick was poking Buck in the thigh. “But I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Buck took a step back, then another, not quite meeting Eddie’s eyes. “Sex complicates things?”

Eddie shook his head. “No,” he said, reaching out to take Buck’s hand. “It’s not that. You…after everything today, you need to make sure this is what you want for more than tonight, and not what you want just right now.”

“What if I told you I already know that it’s what I want for more than tonight?”

Eddie would believe him. But Buck and impulse were synonymous, and Buck was too important to risk. “Chris leaves for camp tomorrow. Tell me again after I put him on the bus and we’ll talk.”

Buck’s smile might well be the death of him one day. “Just ‘talk’?”

“Yeah, well, maybe a little more than that,” Eddie said, telling his dick it was getting none of the stuff he was imagining tonight and it could just go back to sleep. “Come on,” Eddie said, moving away from the counter, but keeping hold of Buck’s hand, using it to pull him down the hall. “Take a shower. I’ll get you some clothes and make up the couch, and you can say goodbye to Chris in the morning before he goes.” 

Buck stopped at the bathroom door. “Hey, Eddie?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

Buck shrugged. “For not thinking I’m too much.”

“Well, Chris thinks you hung the stars, and I never argue with his judgment on these things.”

The words brought out that brilliant smile that made Eddie push Buck into the bathroom before he lost the last bit of will he had to stop himself from taking Buck to bed. 

“Take a shower. I’ll still be here when you get out.”

Eddie was a few steps away when Buck said, voice almost normal, “Not gonna leave to go find yourself then?”

He turned around. “Don’t need to. I know who I am when I’m with you.” 

\--  
END

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments greatly welcomed and appreciated! ❤️


End file.
